SC - questions

[david friedman]

At 11:32 PM -0400 6/13/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

(Responding to Ras)

>Acceptable to whom? Perhaps there's something in the Constitution on
>this. There are no rules, as far as I know, regarding the extent to
>which a kitchener pursues authenticity in a feast. I have high standards
>of authenticity, so do you, so does AM, so do many of us. These
>standards are rule systems designed by and for us, that we choose to
>live by. They have no bearing as rules for anybody who doesn't
>voluntarily adopt them, least of all in connection with a new cook
>trying to grasp what it is we do.

They may have no bearing as rules, but neither are they simply 
arbitrary choices that you and I and Ras et. al. make and that are 
irrelevant to everyone else. We make those choices for what we think 
good reasons, and it is entirely appropriate to offer those good 
reasons to other people, including novice cooks, in order to persuade 
them to agree with us.

>If the lady
>decides to make a real effort to do an accurate period recreation within
>the theme of her event, that will be wonderful and we'll all be proud of
>her, I'm sure. But she should do it because most people's experience has
>shown that doing it that way is more enjoyable than simply slinging any
>old hash, not out of fear that people will disapprove.

I agree. But the passage Ras was taking issue with said:

>  Nothing is wrong with ANY of these, you need to
>decide what YOU want and what would make your branch happy.

"Wrong with" isn't limited to "against the rules." There is nothing 
in the rules that prohibits someone from spending the whole event 
sitting in a corner with face to the wall, but there are several 
things wrong with doing so--it isn't any fun for the person doing it, 
and makes no contribution to the event. Similarly I believe, and you 
believe, and for that matter AM believes, that there is something 
wrong with doing modern food at SCA events--that's why we don't do it.

If you believe that "most people's experience has shown that doing it 
that way is more enjoyable," then you also believe that there is 
something wrong with not doing it that way--namely that it will be 
less enjoyable.

>  > It is both unnecessary and well outside the scope of the SCA in general.
>  > There is no difference of expectation of 'pre-17th century' in 
>feast service
>  > than there is in garb or any other aspect of the SCA. To encourage such a
>  > route is appalling, IMO. I and many others do not attend any events that
>  > serve a feast that is not at the very least an attempt at pre-17th century
>  > food no matter what the other pluses are for the event.
>
>Neither do I, as a rule. But, again, not everyone in the SCA is like you
>or me, and on the off chance that the lady's group would rather have a
>simple meal of familiar foods requiring no research, that might be what
>is best _for them_. I don't think that it is, but it's their decision.

And what I (and, I suspect, Ras) object to in this is the moral 
relativist tone--the unwillingness to argue for something you believe 
in for fear you might somehow be misinterpreted as commanding it.The 
fact that something is someone else's decision doesn't mean you 
shouldn't tell them how to make it--it just means that they are free 
to ignore your advice if they want to.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/